


And It All Came True

by MinaMauveine



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: AU, F/F, Magic, PWP, Porn With Plot, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-07
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2017-12-28 17:56:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/994845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MinaMauveine/pseuds/MinaMauveine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During the hours when the room was basked in dusky greys Regina could almost decipher the letters drawn by Emma’s fingertips. </p><p>Was she supposed to claim ignorance to the words scrawled onto her skin? To the way Emma’s eyes shone with affection too fragile to keep out in the daylight?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Emma slams Regina’s wrists against the wall. The cheap paint cracks, flicks of white dusts their hair.

 

Why did Regina choose the cheapest possible motel? Most would presume the regal Madame Mayor would only deign for the very height of luxury and yet, here they were. In this sad excuse of a roadside motel just 30 minutes from Storybrooke.

 

Was it because Regina was ashamed of them, of their son finding out?

 

That he’ll walk into the master bedroom one morning and see them sharing his adoptive mother’s bed?

 

Regina must despise it, to have Emma, righteous and naïve. Someone that embodies the very love she attempted to destroy being the one to bring her cresting over the precipice of pleasure.

 

Emma’s free hand glides down the rise of Regina’s ribs and the curve of her hip, skimming along the waist band of the skirt before flicking at the clasp to leave her in a lacy pair of panties.

 

“Tell me you want this.” Emma crushes her bittersweet smile against Regina’s lips, pretending to swallow an answer the proud woman would never provide.

 

If this was the only way she could have Regina then she’ll settle for it, and Regina knew it too. Regina’s hands release their grip on Emma’s shoulder, sliding down over the blonde’s collar bones, taking a moment to cup Emma’s chest, thumbs flicking over hardening nipples.

 

Regina’s nails scrapes along Emma’s toned abdomen and then unbuttons impossibly tight jeans; she presses her fingers against Emma’s core.

 

Emma bucks, she would bet on her life that Regina was intoxicated on the power, bask in wielding the power to cause Emma’s easy unraveling.

 

Another lover would’ve teased with sweet and nonchalant words, but of course Regina is nothing like any of her previous bedfellows.

 

Regina purrs in a particularly malicious tone even when they are in bed. “Someone is easily excited, aren’t they?” It’s said with judgement, said in a way that Emma knows she _should_ feel ashamed of her body’s reactions, heat burns uncomfortably insistent on her cheeks.

 

Emma wants the façade to continue, wants this hate to blossom into something substantial. Something that was healthy. That their fervent touches evolve into what could be witnessed in daylight. With PG-13 dialogue and secretive hand holdings in the darkness of the theatre they take their son to, with teasing that held no malice.

 

Emma isn’t delusional; she knows she isn’t in a fairy tale and there are no happy endings for her.

 

At least not the kind of happy ending that survived outside the bedroom.

 

“You’re a real motherfucker, Regina Mills.” It’s disappointing how Regina wants even less to do with her than she did to those faceless lovers of her youth.

 

Was it karma that insists on her senseless heartache?   
  
“Well, you’re first in line for that position once I get you off.” Regina twists her hand just so; it makes Emma cringe to be so easily taken.

 

Regina smirks when Emma twitches before beginning anew. She’s pumping her fingers in and out in a breakneck pace while Emma does her damnest not to mewl under the incessant assault. She was never one to be quiet in bed but no one else manages to play her quite like Regina.

 

It only took one smug look after their first session together to make Emma withhold her voice from betraying the extent of her pleasure. She’s petty like this and silly if she truly thought about it. It was harder to indulge in the euphoria of Regina’s attention when she’s intent on remaining silent as death when she comes.    
  
Emma strains off the bed and tucks her face into the crook of Regina’s overheated neck; she can hear their hearts pound to a synched beat. She bites into Regina’s shoulder to muffle her own scream and manages to gain a throaty groan from her partner. She still has her arms locked around the other woman’s nape when Regina starts to pull away.  
  
“That’s quite enough, Ms. Swan.” Regina’s voice holds no room for argument as she wipes her fingers dry on the linen of the motel bed. “Now if you don’t mind.”  
  
Regina slides her body off Emma’s sticky and overexerted one, she watches with some distain as Emma takes far too long to settle down but willing opens her legs when Emma rolls to situate herself between them. 

 

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

“You did this!” Emma was pass logic; pass any reasonable measure of displeasure. She’s livid that Regina has stoop so low, to allow the ire between them to seep harm onto Henry. “That apple, he drags me into your room to show me that stupid fucking apple.”  


“What?” If Emma was sane at the moment she would’ve recognized the genuine disbelief in Regina’s words, but all she could feel was righteous fury. She was an idiot in thinking that Regina had any good in her. She felt even stupider for thinking their night time meetings were anything more than a trade in flesh.

 

Them together in a truce was only ever for the shameful indulgence of sex.

 

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

The bottles and packages of medicine tumble over their shoulders as Emma rams Regina into the metal cabinets. The pain is sharp and unforgiving against her back but she doesn’t have the drive to return the damage she’ll likely sustain. She hadn’t meant for Henry to consume the poison apple.

 

She hadn’t even begun to bake it into an end for Emma.

 

She had taken the apple from her past to stop the cursed Saviour from ruining everything. That was permanently stalled when an angry verbal bout with Emma had resulted with them on her desk one on top of another. It had been a few weeks since Graham’s life had ended so who could blame her for needing release whilst dealing with the unwaveringly imbecilic Sheriff? That had been their first tryst together and Regina promised herself to never allow them within the sanctum of her office again.

 

Though she was not one to be caught unprepared, her tutelage under Rumple has driven that instinct into her. The enchanted apple charmed with a stasis spell. It lay in a drawer of her bedroom, displaying Snow’s first bite, never rusting or decaying. The apple was supposed to sit in wait until Emma became more of a hindrance than a pleasure.

 

Until then it would be her safety net, an assurance.

  
Regina had been heading to the mausoleum with the apple for safe keeping when Emma stormed into her bedroom. More clambered through her window than stormed, though it had the same outcome of a peeved but concerned Regina. Emma had let out an irritated grunt as she finished scaling the trellis and discarded her jacket as she approached Regina.  
  
The ‘how dare you’ was cut off by Emma’s lips, their front teeth had clicked painfully into each other until Regina threw the apple onto the ground and met Emma’s forceful touch with equal vigor.

 

It felt a life time ago, when all she had to contend with was the idea that Emma might trespass into her domain with little more than lingerie and a confession of despising motel rooms. It hadn’t exactly been the biggest threat to her reign.

 

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

Regina made concessions, allowed changes in her ways set in stone; her chiselled rules became malleable under Emma’s pigheaded insistence.

 

Her bedsheets warmed by a lithe body that willingly stayed the nights. The scent of the pillows carried not cologne but cheap lotions that made Regina sniffle in distaste. Then during the hours when the room was basked in dusky greys Regina could almost decipher the letters drawn by Emma’s fingertips.

 

Was she supposed to claim ignorance to the words scrawled onto her skin? To the way Emma’s eyes shone with affection too fragile to keep out in the daylight?

 

Surely their relationship was not supposed to transcend anywhere near functional. Emma’s clothes shouldn’t have made their way sneakily into a drawer she herself had left open and waiting to be filled. That a routine of life, work and Henry shouldn’t have an allotment of space made just for Emma.

 

It was surreal how Emma, groggy with sleep and cheek holding red indentions from their sheets became absurdly endearing in Regina’s eyes. 

 

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

“You did this!” Emma was repeating herself in her rage, her indignant tears making her lips shine and causing Regina to meet her frustration halfway. Emma’s crying out of abject misery and anxiety over Henry.

 

To make everything else feel so much worse, she’s humiliated by thinking she could’ve ever care for Regina Mills.

 

Or that Regina was even capable of caring back.

 

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

Regina could recall in vivid detail how Henry glowed under his grandparents’ attention. It didn’t matter that the Charmings had burst into a private hospital room; their fussing was wanted and welcomed. Regina had loitered outside the gathering family. The glass doors a translucent barrier separating her from Henry fogged with the warmth of her trembling hand. Her eyes had darted onto Emma’s back and she watched in dismay as her normally strong partner cried with Henry awake and well in her arms.

 

The memory pained her every time she dwelled on it but she was a glutton for punishment and cycled into depression.

 

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

Regina doesn’t expect to see Emma once the curse breaks but she has yet to resign completely from her son’s life.

 

Henry is carelessly cruel after the validation of his claims. She expects more from him and wonders if that was what her own mother felt during _her_ betrayal.

 

Perhaps it was a Mills trait to expect too much and give too little.

 

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

The fairy tale characters stampede onto Regina’s lawn but it isn’t until Emma rushes onto the scene does she open her front door. She tells herself it’s because she’s had quite enough of seeing her precious flora getting crushed under peasant shoes and nothing with how her heart crunches at the sight of Emma’s strained expression.

 

They leave her alone soon enough; her heart feels like it’s going to explode when Henry hurries to her defence and then it crumples when Emma refuses to exchange a single word with her.

 

Emma doesn’t even look over her shoulder as she drags Henry into her car, speaking to the empty streets.  “I’ll keep him this week.”

 

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………  
  
Emma ignores Henry’s complaints but he’s precocious enough to recall what wisps of love once looked like. He had wanted to stop this from happening, save his real mom from getting tricked into believing in the wrong tale.

 

He had bitten the fruit to protect her from heartache, but when he creeps down the stairs and watches Emma take long drags from an amber, apple smelling liquid he can hear her sniffle down her tears. He wonders if he’s caused the pain instead of preventing it.

 

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

  
They lose contact completely.

 

They never talk about what had happened between them during the hours when the entire town slept and only the moon lit their excursions. When Emma had thought her bedfellow was unaware and she amused herself with learning every curve and dip of Regina’s body.

 

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

When she wakes, all she wants was for someone to chop her head off. Stem the suffering. Her skin sparks with excess poisonous magic. Absorbing a killing curse should have had just one effect and yet here she was still alive and breathing. Each breath tore scraps off her throat and her lungs seizes with each inhale and exhale but she was still here. Her body felt too goddamn wrung out to move and she was sticky from sweat. A cool hand had presses to her forehead before a towel smooths comfortingly against her skin.

 

Emma interlaces their fingers and even though it agitates her internal injuries, it soon stops the waves of pain. Regina can sense it was something other than touch alone that sooths her agony, something that fuels the most powerful magic.

 

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

It takes Regina absorbing an entire killing curse before Emma enters back into the mansion. Henry returns along with Emma whilst she tries and fails to make anything near chicken noodle soup. Snow moves in on the behest of her only daughter and Charming comes along with the package.

 

Snow and Charming remain on the lower levels of the mansion while Emma or Henry brings the meals to Regina.

 

It’s an unspoken rule that neither group acknowledge that the other is present.

 

Snow ignores how she always makes enough for five instead of four. Charming is complacent and grateful for a bed within an actual room with a door. Regina pretends that Emma has spontaneously learnt how to cook. Henry flits between the two sides with fruitless attempts at bringing his mothers and grandparents together. He’s trying to amend his wrongs but neither side are willing to compromise.

 

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

Regina doesn’t know how to explain how it had been one big misunderstanding. That even she herself had forgotten the apple that had sat waiting like a hunter’s trap on her path towards happiness. That she had been as guileless as any fool caught in fondness, too distracted by what contentment felt like to remember the curse that ambushed her. The notion was so childish, so raw with truth that the words dry, wither and remain unspoken.

 

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

The drawer Regina had empty out months ago still holds the clothing Emma has left behind. Regina can’t bring herself to clean out the only reminder she has left of their short encounter.

 

Emma can’t risk her heart to test whether she had ever been allowed a place in Regina’s life.   


………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

Regina’s eyes are hooded and peaceful as Emma pushes a loofah over the rise of her breast. She’s no longer so weak that she can’t accomplish the chore herself. Though neither says a word when Emma enters the bathroom and squeezes out expensive soaps into the filling tub.

 

Regina can’t contain the whimper that escapes as Emma brushes the sponge excruciatingly close to where she aches. Emma has helped with nightly ablution number times over the last month but Regina had always been too drowsy from the cozy waters and fatigued from the curse that jostled her organs to do more than groan and writhe.

 

She blinks up at Emma and for once her expression is not faux coyness but genuine affection. She lets her emotions seep into her expression and hopes against reason as she tugs on the waistband of Emma’s boxers. She drags Emma close until the other woman acquiesces and slides one leg and then another into the tub. They stay sitting, facing one another for a while before Emma slicks the wet tank top and boxer shorts from her body and plops them noisily onto the bathroom tiles.

 

“You’ll be the one to pick them up, dear.” Regina lets the term of endearment drag over her tongue, elongating it so there’s a purr hidden between the ‘e’ and the ‘a’.

 

“Maybe.” Emma is lathering the soap into Regina’s calves, working the tense muscles free of their knots. The appreciative sigh encourages her further but when her finger tips glance just shy of the apex of Regina’s legs, Emma backs up and works on the other leg.

 

Regina tries to hide her disappointment and shifts uneasily. Her sexual frustration from the past months congregating together to make her pliant and wanting, she tugs her leg free from Emma and turns to press her back against Emma’s naked front. A barely repressed moan encourages Regina to move Emma’s arms to wrap around her torso. It takes a while more until she can place Emma’s fingertips against her clitoris. Regina tries to be calm and refrains from grinding against the passive touch Emma has against her body.  
  
There is no string of ‘please’ or mantra made of Emma’s name. There are no words that are enough to start up a song that had ended by the breaking of a 28 year-old curse. Regina has to initiate it, has to show that she wants it. It reddens her cheeks in a way that has nothing to do with the steam that fogs the mirrors across from them.

 

To have her wants so openly known. It’s improper and something a well brought-up lady such as herself should never engage in. The taboo of her actions only makes her movements quicken until her hips are rocking into Emma’s hand. A continuous keening sound leaves her before she can think to stop it and Emma presses a kiss to her neck, just where the curve of her spine ends.

 

Regina almost bolts when Emma _finally_ touches her, really presses and rolls her fingers; it makes the water slosh over the side of the bathtub and Regina finds herself not caring just this once.

 

Emma flattens her hand away from Regina’s guiding touch and skims down so that she cups Regina’s sex. She swirls a timid finger just at Regina’s entrance and after so many rough encounters it surprises Regina to hear how laboured her breathing becomes.

 

“M-more.” Regina coughs but the stutter doesn’t leave her words when she voices her wishes again. She can only grasp onto the edges of the porcelain tub as her head lolls back onto Emma’s shoulder.

 

Emma’s grin is dampened by melancholy but Regina misses it as two fingers finally slide into her body. It is a passionate ride to the finish line and when Emma’s curls her touch, it forces Regina to crumble.

 

Regina falls apart again and again but knows if there was one place where it was safe to unravel it would be in Emma’s arms.

 

Minutes later, Regina flutters her eyes open to Emma’s relieved hazel orbs, she reaches back and pulls Emma close for a kiss but her lover turns at the last moment and she finds her lips pressing against the other woman’s cheek. “Oh.”

 

“We aren’t… I can’t, at least not how we were.” Emma sounds apologetic and Regina wonders how the guiltless can sound so doleful.

 

“Thankfully, Ms. Swan,” it vexes her that Emma gets to be the one to set the rules for them, that another has control; Regina knows no other way to deal with rejection but with malice, “we were never anything to begin with.”

 

Emma bites her tongue and there’s something that resembles acceptance in a long known fact that makes Regina’s heart hurt more than anything the killing curse has put her through. Emma scrambles out of the tepid waters and leaves the room with the only towel available.

  
Regina misses the legs that book-cased around hers and is unappreciative of the hard curve of her tub. She feels as a cheap whore just plying for her trade, after a night with a john it leaves her body barely sated and her chest gapingly empty.

 

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

Cora is dead.

 

Regina holds her mother’s body tightly against hers and wonders time and time again why everyone she cares about ends up dead in her arms. Daniel, both her parents… Who’s next? She blinks through burning tears to see the horrified shock on Emma’s face.

 

Never again will she allow it to happen. She had been the one to rip her father’s out then and now the one to slot her mother’s cursed heart back in.

 

She repeatedly tries to reach in and grasp the poisonous organ from her mother’s chest but even with her wrist and hand compressed by the magic that allows her to bypass muscle and bone she can’t make the stubborn heart budge.

 

The flesh of her hand is burnt when it vacates her mother’s chest. The toxin from the curse corroding through her leather gloves and excoriates the skin of her palms.

 

Regina is never enough; if she had been, then perhaps her mother would still be here now. Cora never required love, it was a weakness. It was her needy flaw that has cost her mother’s life.

 

If she could’ve she would surely take her mother’s place, given her own functioning heart to pump warmth into Cora’s cooling skin.

 

“Regina, if there’s anything that you nee-”

 

“I _need_ my mother!” Regina snaps at Snow, her fury making a heavy misting fog of tyrian purple fill the room, it’s deeper than the amethyst that normally comes to her. It’s unnaturally dark and it reminds her of the clotting blood that seeps from the corner of Cora’s lips.

 

Emma is kneeling beside her and brings a hand up to caress Regina’s cheek; she’s brushing away tears that won’t stop. A cerulean glow mingles with the colours around Regina until the cloud around them is a mixture of dioxazine purple and prussian blue. There’s no unity in the tendrils of magic that tangle and glance off one another but there’s also no signs of them repelling either.

 

When Snow tries to approach her daughter the mingling strands of magic swirl around the pair, it cocoons them and Cora in a thick haze and when it fades so do they.

 

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

They find themselves inside Henry senior’s resting place, in the sanctum sanctorum of Regina’s remaining land. She’s not quite strong enough to move Cora so all she can do is cradle her mother in her arms and drench the fine dress with her tears.

 

“Mommy.” Regina’s voice cracks, broken and hollow as her pleas go unanswered by the dead.

 

It’s heartrending to see Regina shatter. Nothing holds Regina back from her dismal spiral into anguish and Emma doesn’t know what to do. All she can do is stroke her hand soothingly down Regina’s quaking body.

 

“Regina...” She needs some guidance but the person she normally went to was currently disposed to anything but misery.

 

“I’m not strong enough.” Regina struggles on her spot on the ground but isn’t able to move Cora’s body. “I’m not good enough.”

 

“No, Regina, god.” Emma slides her arms under Cora’s neck and crook of her knees and then lifts the weight against her body. “Where do you want us to place her… With your father?” Emma’s voice is a bare whisper, the atmosphere of loss too heavy to disperse.

 

Regina nods and wipes at her eyes, it doesn’t stop the tears and she can hardly walk so she stumbles after Emma as they travel back up the stairs. The top of the stone casket takes a lot of work before it finally slams onto the floor. A plume of dust unsettles from the floor and Emma doesn’t know what to expect, bones, a desiccated body, but certainly not an empty box. Emma gently places Cora into her final resting place while Regina recites spells to preserve the body in eternal stagnancy. 

 

When Regina dips her head at Emma, they both work together to cover the coffin with the slab of stone. With the task done, all Regina can do is weep for the pathetic and never ending tragedy of her life. So many deaths were on her shoulders, if only she had been strong enough, if only she was ever enough.

 

“Do you want me to drive us… drive _you_ home?” Emma is hesitant, her emotions in a complete disarray.

 

“I have neither mother nor child.” Regina’s eyes are vacant when they flick up at Emma. “No family or home.”

 

“Regina.” Emma wants to cry for Regina’s loss but instead she guides the other woman up and leads them back downstairs to where she had caught sight of a downy bed. The stone covering groans into place above them and shields them from the search party that has begun to scour the town.

 

Regina drops into the bedding and drags a pillow into her arms. The room looks meticulously cared for; even the duvet has been carefully folded. With the way that Regina snivels into the blankets, Emma can guess who once occupied this room.

 

Emma takes off Regina’s high heels and layers of autumn jackets and scarves. When she reaches to deal with the mangled gloves, Emma is extra careful to be gentle.  
  
Regina weakly shoves Emma’s hands away and all but rips the leather from her raw palms. She feels like she deserves the pain and wants more of it so she runs her nails against the clotting wounds until new blood pulses to the surface. She doesn’t know how to cease crying since all she can fixate on is wasted minutes and how utterly useless she has been through it all. It’s a boundless pool of regret, the turmoil doesn’t appear to have a conclusion and it takes moments for Regina to once again consider ending it all.

 

Regina clenches a hand over her heart and tries futilely to reach for the blasted organ but she’s too disconcerted to focus her magic. She ends up weakly beating her abraded palm into her blouse, the blood and flesh making a slopping smack each time.

 

Emma attempts to stop Regina’s movements but it only exasperates the condition of the wound when she struggles against Emma’s staying hand. Emma rushes over to the adjoining bathroom and runs warm water onto a towel, she returns to bed and wraps Regina’s injured limb in the soft heat before coaxing the other women of the bloody blouse. Emma unbuttons and rids Regina of the prim grey pants and pushes the covers until she can bundle Regina under the layers of pallid comfort. 

 

Emma lingers by the side of the bed, unsure of where she was allowed to be. She takes time to grab another towel, wetting and bringing it to Regina’s running make up. It takes her a long while to clean the mess since Regina attempts to remove the towel on her palm and Emma thinks it’s best to bandage the injury before dealing with cosmetics.

 

There’s no emergency medical kit to be found in the crypt so Emma starts shredding her thin tank top and uses the makeshift bandages to bind the wound for the time being. She brings a box of tissues to the bedside and Regina dabs at her eyes before noisily blowing her nose. There’s a moment when she’s conscientious of her dire appearance but the thought of decorum only brings her mind back to Cora and another tide of limitless tears.

 

Emma sits at the edge of the bed in her bra and jeans, her shoes already kicked off but she’s unable to just curl around Regina without permission. She starts to get up in the hopes of finding clothing to wrap around her chilly frame when Regina’s undamaged hand grips onto her bicep with surprising strength. “Don’t.”

 

Don’t? Don’t what? Don’t be the daughter of a murdering fairy tale character? Don’t be a bystander to homicide? Don’t fail those that rely on you? Don’t be in-

 

“Don’t leave me.” Regina’s voice is impossibly small under the covers and it’s her normal rule of never asking for favours momentarily surfaces but is squashed down just as quick. “Please, if you could stay.”

 

Emma wordlessly molds herself into Regina’s back; her thumb caressing the bump of Regina’s hipbone until the other woman’s breathing softens from choking sobs and evens into the regularities of slumber.

 

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

Another electroshock jolts through Regina’s systems until all she can see is splotching light but this time there’s no reprieve from the pains she suffers under, it just doesn’t cease.

 

She has told Greg or Owen -or whatever he labels himself these days- what he wanted to know. That his foolish father was dead. Regina should have slaughtered the child that ran with her secret but couldn’t bring herself to kill the piece of love ignited in her heart.

 

Look at what she’s brought unto herself. Love is surely a weakness.

 

There’s no reason for her to stall the inevitable. Her death feels as an occurrence that should have happened eons ago. Henry was protected by his other mother, they were both safe and the Evil Queen who ruined their lives would get her just rewards.

 

Her body jostles from the continuous current, she has held on as long as she could but her vision is starting to blur and the heated tingly sensation is close to snapping her body in half.

 

There is a crank of a dial in the far off distance. Her grimace is frozen in a bite, crushing her teeth into her jaw and skull. Her muscles contract into themselves all in one go until she is sure she’s about to be torn apart.

 

At the very threshold of agony when she was about to let it go there was suddenly nothing.

 

A hand strokes against her squared jaw and it feels as if a hoof of a horse pummels into her chest. Regina gasps and chokes on air as the braces around her wrists dig deep into her flesh. She’s still in the throes of the aftershock and can’t help but buck and tear at her restraints.

 

She remains silent through the whole ordeal. She refuses to break down, to let one iota of her suffering be enjoyed by yet another man that tries for her submission. She renounces any that dare use her for their entertainment and withholds each and every piece of herself to anyone but- 

 

“Emma!” Charming blunders into the room with the grace of a sheep herder. “You found her!”

 

There’s a terrible moment when Emma wants to fling her hour long frustrations onto her father. Inform him that _she’ll always_ find Regina just to irk him. No one but Regina believed in her suspicion of Tamara and Greg, if they had just listened then it wouldn’t have taken so long to find the prostrate woman now.

 

Mary Margaret had a droplet of Regina’s torture and promptly passed out; Emma could only imagine what Regina had been forced to endure this whole time they were running around like a pack of idiots. “We need to get her help.”

 

“Right.” He moves forward, prepared to throw Regina over his shoulder in a firemen carry; it’s the most efficient use of energy and provides the quickest transportation to the car.

 

Emma grips his shoulder until he backs away, confusion in his eyes. “As in, go outside where there’s reception so you can call the ambulance, we shouldn’t move her.”

 

Charming nods, “Right.” He runs back out just as Snow charges into the room, her bow at the ready.

 

Emma threads her fingers through Regina’s sweat matted bangs and pressed her lips to Regina’s brow. “It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

 

“Catch. Greg.” Words trip over themselves through Regina’s parched throat.

 

“Mary Margaret,” Emma’s tone is acerbic but she hides the strain behind cordialities, “could you **_please_** look for Greg, he should still be around here.” Emma moves to unbuckle the restraints now that Regina is more stable.

 

“Emma, your father has called the ambulance and we should stick together-”

 

“That’s why I’m staying with Regina.” Emma glares back, astonished by her mother’s carelessness. “Do you want me to just leave her here, defenceless like this?”

 

“No, of course not but I’m just suggesting that we focus our combined efforts on something _more_ important.” Snow tentatively motions for the door but Emma only stares back.

 

There’s a flicker of emotion on Regina’s face that passes as quickly as it appears.

 

“No, don’t worry.” Emma squeezes the hand with still healing scars. “Of course I’m staying, you _are_ important.”

 

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

There’s not enough power to shut down the torrent of magic that fluctuates around the diamond. Regina knows this for certain but realizes that Emma does not. That Emma isn’t capable of knowing the true extent of how badly this was to unfold.

 

Their magic is still refusing to completely merge due to whatever restraints Emma has in her heart.

 

They _should be_ able to stop the self-destruct. Their magic together was what built worlds, tore armies apart and broke every single rule of reality and the rule of curses. She had known the moment their intertwined magic got them through the magical barriers of the Mausoleum. There were no means for anyone to enter those stone walls without destroying the barriers she had erected.  Not without her express permission and magical involvement.

 

No matter how skilled she was and how Emma took to her own magic. She had been in no condition to allow them through. The barriers were not penetrated, broken or demolished; it had just allowed them through because they had an essence more potent than anything else in the world.

 

But Emma was a fickle believer and it seems there were only moments when she was able to trust. Surely the furthest thing from Emma’s mind at this particular second was their complicated relationship. There’s not enough time to explain so Regina allows one hand to center the switch as she uses the other to weave a teleportation spell into being.

 

She would’ve given her heart for her mother and lived a life in bleak and clear logic.

 

She would give even more for Emma.

 

.

.

.

.

.

 

So she does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired and written with 'Matt Walters - I Would Die For You' playing in the background. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mk4-3gg1SI) 
> 
> I've been cautioned by my wondrous beta Luthor that I should probably leave a warning on this ficlet but if I did that then the last line would loose it's impact. Sometimes life just hits you without any blazoning signs and it leaves you staggering, confused and barely breathing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was proof reading through this and gosh the tenses are just a mess. I did a lot of touching up and found myself still too fond of this story and what I attempted to do with it. 
> 
> I actually have two chapters after this to round it off as a trilogy and am wondering if there's any interest. I'll have to put in a lot of work to fix the atrocious grammar and tenses in those chapters if I'm ever to post. 
> 
> Here's an excerpt.

“You were catatonic Emma! What were we supposed to do?” Snow’s words trembled with distress.

 

“Anything other than fucking drugging me!” Emma backed away from her parents, away from the condescendingly well-meaning Blue Fairy that scrutinized Emma as if she were a child throwing a tantrum. “Or stopped gas lighting me on your own fucking accord instead of me having to hunt down the clues?!”

 

“You are still seeing ghosts!” Snow grabbed Emma by the shoulders and forced her daughter to face her. “Your hallucinations were all consuming and you were displaying symptoms of withdraw, we were worried you’ll lose your health along with your mind… we didn’t have a choice.”

 

“There’s _always_ a choice.” Emma released a burst of magic which shoved her parents and even Blue from crowding her. “I’m going to bring her back; Henry will be coming with me.”

 

“No no no, please I can’t lose you again, please take your medicine, just drink your laudanum.” Snow fell to her knees. “Please, Emma, you’re being irrational.”

 

“You’ve lost me since I was a baby," Emma pushed the words she has kept to herself for far too long, "So high and mighty for judging Regina for lying to her child while you do the same but worst…I was stupid to forgive you for murdering Cora in your self-righteous bullshit but to find out you poisoned another woman's child just so you could have an easier time with me, instead of fucking going to... oh I don't know, counselling or putting in any kind of actual work.” Emma summoned her magic, the dusky blue was tinged with a purple that swirled forward more evident than ever, Emma laughed, finally able to see clearly for the first time in months. “We are through; I know Regina Mills is not a delusion.”

**Author's Note:**

> [Buy Me a Coffee?](https://ko-fi.com/A1464VTG)


End file.
